


It Is Him I Love

by brightlikeloulou



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28762152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightlikeloulou/pseuds/brightlikeloulou
Summary: “You want a drink?”Rick looks up from where he’d been watching the flames of the fire. Daryl stands a few metres away, crossbow slung over his shoulder and looking just as exhausted as Rick feels. The silence of the camp washes over them, the rest of the group having retired to their tents hours ago.“What are you offering?”****Or, the fic where Daryl and Rick's romance begins at the farm.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes, Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Maggie Greene/Glenn Rhee
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, welcome to my fic, enjoy <3
> 
> *
> 
> thank u to Sam Smith for his stunning song Him, which inspired this fic & is what it's been named after.

“You want a drink?”

Rick looks up from where he’d been watching the flames of the fire. Daryl stands a few metres away, crossbow slung over his shoulder and looking just as exhausted as Rick feels. The silence of the camp washes over them, the rest of the group having retired to their tents hours ago.

“What are you offering?”

“Moonshine or whisky. Take your pick,” Daryl grunts and moves out of the fire’s dim light, disappearing into the darkness and toward his tent. After a moment, Rick gets up and follows him.

His eyes adjust to the dark as he trudges along the field to where Daryl had set up camp away from the rest of them, for reasons Rick didn’t know. He can see Daryl’s form twenty or so yards in front of him, a faded outline in the dark, but Rick still notices that there’s still a limp in his step from his fall down the ravine.

By the time Rick has reached Daryl’s tent, the older man is already sat down in the dirt by his own fire, two bottles beside him, with his knees pulled up to his chest and his chin resting on his arms.

Rick drops down next to him and doesn’t waste time before reaching for the closest bottle. He tips his head back and takes a swig of it, immediately gagging at the taste that blooms on his tongue, forcing himself to swallow it before to cough at the intense burn that spreads down his throat.

Daryl chuckles beside him, “Ain’t you ever had moonshine?”

Rick drops the bottle back to the dirt, “Not since I was a teenager and that’s much worse than I remember,” he replies once he can finally speak again.

Daryl takes the moonshine and offers him the Jack Daniels instead, “It’s Merle’s brew. Be stronger than whatever you had as a teenager,” Rick takes the whisky and finds that more than half of it has already been drank.

Rick has a mouthful of the whisky, and it’s no beer, but he finds it goes down much smoother than the moonshine, and he doesn’t hesitate in having a second gulp. He feels a sense of guilt at hearing Merle’s name because being honest, he hadn’t thought of the older Dixon brother since they’d left the Quarry. He thinks about what the man was like, loud and angry at the world, and how different he and Daryl were.

“I’m sorry,” Rick finally murmurs, after they’d drank in silence for a few minutes, feeling a droplet of sweat roll from between his shoulder blades and down to his lower back.

“What for?” Daryl grunts, and Rick watches as he swallows back a mouthful of moonshine without even the slightest flinch. Rick almost cringes for him.

“For Sophia. You tried harder than all of us to find her,” he says, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t find her alive.”

He hears Daryl sigh deeply, “I wasn’t the only one looking for her, man,” he replies, “We all lost that little girl today.”

Rick raises his bottle and holds it out toward the hunter, “To Sophia,” he says, meeting Daryl’s eyes in the pale light of the fire.

Daryl lifts his bottle and clinks them together, “To Sophia,” he repeats, and then takes a hefty swig, Rick following suit and downs several large mouthfuls, relishing the gentle burn in his throat and the warmth that he feels begin to spread through his belly and chest. For a moment, at Daryl’s camp, far away from the others, from Lori and Shane, he feels more at peace than he has in weeks.

They fall into silence again after the toast, swallowing down their alcohol and staring into the fire, and Rick knows undoubtedly, that Daryl has things on his mind too. So, they sit, listening to the cicadas loud in the trees, the occasional bellow of a cow, and the crackling of the fire, and simply think in each other’s presence.

Rick guesses it’s been about an hour, probably less, when he finally empties the bottle, and he tosses the empty bottle into the remnants of the fire. Rick watches as the embers strengthen and lick up the side of tinted glass, and when he feels eyes on him, he turns to Daryl. The older man had drunk a significantly less amount of moonshine than Rick had whisky. Rick felt buzzed, relaxed, a pleasant warmth having soaked into his bones, and he finds himself smiling at the hunter.

He realises that with how they’d been sitting, now that they’d both turned to look at each other, their faces were only a few inches apart. Rick can see the reflection of the fire in the hunter’s eyes, the mole above the corner of his mouth, that his lips part after a few moments. Rick realises that he finds the man incredibly attractive.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to lean in, the alcohol, the exhaustion, the grief, but whatever it is it clouds his judgement and he presses his lips against Daryl’s. It takes a few seconds of Daryl not responding for Rick to pull back, realising that Daryl Dixon didn’t seem like the kind of guy to let another man kiss him, if the things Rick had heard Merle say were anything to go off. He pulls back enough to see Daryl’s face; his brows are pulled together in confusion and his hand is still around the neck of the bottle of moonshine.

Rick shifts, to move away before he gets punched in the face but Daryl grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him back, pushing their mouths together again. Pleasantly surprised Rick kisses back tentatively; Daryl’s lips are chapped and dry, a start contrast to Lori, who applied chapstick almost obsessively, but Rick finds he doesn’t mind the roughness of the man’s mouth. They naturally part again, Rick searching Daryl’s eyes in a silent question, and Daryl answers by leaning forward again, and this time Rick kisses him harder, sliding his tongue along his lips until Daryl parts them to allow for Rick to slip his tongue inside, and Lori leaves his mind.

Rick finds himself sliding an arm around Daryl’s lower back, pulling him closer as he rested the other hand on his upper arm, squeezing the hard muscle he finds there. Daryl threads fingers into his hair in response and kisses him deeper; he tastes like moonshine, but Rick finds that he likes the taste a lot more when he’s sucking it off the hunter’s tongue.

He’s kissed guys before, he knew he was attracted to them, but he met Lori only months after he figured it out and he’d always been faithful to her, so his experience was limited to rushed make out sessions in secluded parking lots or his car. But, kissing a man how was he was now, heated and private, with the scent of smoke and sweat in the air, alcohol buzzing in his system, he finds himself desperate for more and he pulls Daryl even closer, the older man stumbling until he’s half in his lap. Daryl’s hands land on his shoulders to steady himself and Rick slides his hands from his back to his thighs, running his hands down them, and then back up, squeezing tightly at the firm muscled flesh. It had been so long since he was last with a man, not since he was nineteen, almost two decades ago, that he had forgotten what it was like to be able to touch the hard body of one. He finds himself hard in his pants incredibly quickly, and he groans against Daryl’s mouth when he shifts against him, accidentally rolling his ass down on his cock.

Daryl breaks their kiss, and Rick pants against his mouth, “The tent, c’mon,” he says, and Rick decides that sounds like a fantastic idea and allows Daryl to scramble out of his lap, accepting the hand he then holds out to him and getting to his feet. They move to the tent, Rick stumbling a few times, his coordination impaired by the whisky, and once through the tent, and Daryl shoves him toward the bedroll, Rick has no hope but falling face-down onto it. Rick curses and rolls onto his back, watching as Daryl zips the tent closed. Daryl turns to face him, reaching up and turning on the lantern hung from the roof of the tent, filling the tent with a soft yellow light, and Rick’s eyes fall on the bulge in the older man’s pants.

“C’mere,” Rick murmurs, eager to feel the man against him again.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Daryl asks, looking down at him as he kicks his boots off. Rick shouldn’t. He should say no, that he can’t because despite what Lori had done they were still married, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he props himself up on his elbows and follows Daryl in kicking off his boots, “Take off your shirt,” he tells him, pleased when Daryl immediately does as he’s told and shrugs off his angel-winged vest before starting on the buttons of his undershirt. Rick watches him as he goes, eyes eagerly following each inch of pale skin as its revealed. He’d seen him shirtless before, when Hershel had stitched him up after his fall down the ravine, so he was aware of the scars that littered the man’s torso, but it was still a shock to see them again. However, seeing Daryl shirtless, the broadness of his shoulders, the muscles of his arms and the slight firmness to his stomach reminds him how physically strong Daryl is, and he’s surprised at how much that turns him on.

Daryl drops the shirt to the ground, kicks Rick’s boots to the side and then lays down on the bedroll beside him, hovering over him. Rick places his hands on his broad shoulders, and then slides them down his pecks, squeezing and using his thumb and index finger to pinch and roll his nipples, smirking when Daryl groans. He wants to suck them, so he sits up and instead rolls Daryl under him, mindful of the wound on his side. He pushes at Daryl’s knees, slotting himself between them and laying down over him. He looks up at him and proceeds to lick up his abdomen, feeling the coarseness of his body hair as he does, and he grins as Daryl arches beneath him.

“That fuckin’ tickles, man,” Daryl huffs, and while that hadn’t been the reaction Rick was going for, he sees an opportunity he can’t resist and smirks.

“You’re ticklish?” he asks and doesn’t let Daryl answer before leaning down again and licking along Daryl’s good side, and Daryl yelps and squirms beneath him, Rick’s body over his hips preventing him from moving away from the sensation. Rick laughs and licks back toward his middle, swirling his tongue in a circle around his bellybutton as Daryl swears at him and tries to shove him off.

“Asshole,” Daryl gasps, and finally, threads his fingers into the curls at the base of Rick’s skull and pulls. It’s Rick’s turn to yelp as pain radiates over his scalp and his head is pulled up toward Daryl’s, “You done?” he asks once their face-to-face, still pulling, his face red and his eyes squinted, his voice raspy.

“Done,” Rick answers, hissing through his teeth until Daryl loosens his hold and Rick leans down, kissing him again as his cock ached from the pain in his scalp. Daryl opens his mouth and Rick kisses him deeper, adjusting his positioning so that his crotch is directly pressed against Daryl’s and as their kiss heatens, he begins to roll his hips. Daryl’s fingers rub gently over his scalp where he’d pulled before, and Rick shivers at the touch. He pulls away from Daryl’s mouth and kisses down his cheek and jaw until he reaches his neck, nipping and sucking at the tender skin he finds there, tasting the salt of his sweat on his tongue.

Rick can feel the hard line of the hunter’s cock against his own and he rolls down harder, impatient for more stimulation against his cock. It was starting to ache with need. He bites Daryl’s neck at a particularly satisfying thrust, and the older man hisses, so Rick is quick to release his teeth and lick over the indents to sooth it. Daryl pulls at his hair again, though gently this time, and moves Rick’s face from his neck, but offers no further guidance.

So, Rick grazes his lips over his chest and runs the pads of his fingers over the tattoo above the older man’s heart, tracing the name _Norman_ , and he wonders who the man was that they meant so much to the older man that he’d tattoo his name over his heart. He moves away from the tattoo and licks over Daryl’s right nipple. Daryl sighs quietly, and Rick then sucks it into his mouth; tonguing at it and then gently grazing his teeth over it, feeling a pang of arousal in his gut as Daryl moaned at the sensation and rutted his almost impossibly hard cock up against Rick’s hip.

He feels Daryl’s second hand move from where it had been under his shirt, feeling-up his some-what toned stomach and instead slips between where their crotches meet and his large hand palms Rick over his pants. Rick groans around the nipple in his mouth at the stimulation and bucks against it, pulling his mouth off and panting into Daryl’s collarbones as the man continued to massage his cock. Shortly, Rick can no longer stand it, the barrier between himself and feeling the warmth and texture of Daryl’s hand, so he pushes himself up and stands. Daryl looks up at him confused, panting slightly, then watches as he pulls off his shirt and undoes the buckle of his belt, Daryl’s eyes dropping as he pulls the belt from the loop and drops his pants and boxers, almost tripping when his leg tangles in his jeans. He may have sobered up significantly since they’d first entered the tent, but his coordination was still somewhat lacking. His cock springs up toward his stomach and he smirks at the quiet ‘fuck’ Daryl mutters.

Rick drops back down to the bedroll, sitting back on his haunches between Daryl’s legs, he reaches for the man’s belt, his fingers being clumsy from the alcohol and excitement it takes him a few moments to get the belt unbuckled. Daryl lifts his hips to allow Rick to grip at waistband of his jeans and tug them down his hips, finding that he’d worn no underwear.

“You always go commando?” Rick asks, raising a brow as he tosses the jeans across the tent.

“Most of the time,” Daryl shrugs and spits on his hand before wrapping it around the girth of Rick’s cock, squeezing for a moment before moving up in down in slow movements. Rick groans and collapses forward, catching himself on one hand beside Daryl’s head. His nose brushes against the hunter’s hair, and Daryl once again, threads fingers into his hair to pull his head down enough that he can kiss his neck. The scratch of the older man’s facial hair against his neck makes him shiver, and he moans when Daryl brushes his thumb over his leaking head, spreading pre-come down his length and then squeezing at the base.

“Shit,” he groans, rolling into Daryl’s hand, “You have no idea how good that feels.”

Daryl hums, “I’d blow you if I didn’t think you’d shoot off in the first thirty seconds.”

“Fuck off, I’d last longer than thirty seconds,” Rick huffs, the mental image of Daryl on his knees with his lips spread around his cock appearing behind his closed eyelids.

Daryl snorts and suddenly a second hand is squeezing his balls softly and Rick cries out, almost collapsing down on top of the hunter, “Don’t believe that for a second, when was last time you got deepthroated, huh?” Daryl replies, smirking proudly as he works what Rick would call magic with his hands.

Rick is surprised by the older man’s words, but he’s got a point. Lori never really liked performing oral sex, so it was often reserved for times like his birthday, and even then, in Daryl’s words, it wasn’t close to ‘deepthroating’, which was fine, he would never hold resentment for Lori for something such as disdain for a sexual act. In fact, of the few blowjobs he’d gotten from girls other than Lori, none of them would have fallen under the class of deepthroating either, so the answer would be never. He chooses not to tell Daryl that, but the older man’s statement that he was willing to, made excitement bubble in his stomach, replacing the brief guilt he’d felt over thinking about Lori. He wanted Daryl right now. Lori was the one who’d been having an affair.

“You ever been with a guy before?” Daryl asks after a few minutes, between Rick’s groans from the hand on his cock, and Daryl’s from his rutting up against Rick’s thigh.

Rick shakes his head, swallowing thickly and cracking open his eyes, taking a moment to remember how to form words, “Only kissed a few, years ago.”

Daryl nods and pushes on Rick’s chest. Rick follows the cue and sits on his haunches, gripping the older man’s knees, “You can top then,” he murmurs.

Rick quirks a brow in surprise, he would have been perfectly content getting off how they were before, but he certainly wouldn’t turn down the offer to fuck Daryl; after all he’d gotten off to enough gay porn to know he’d be into it. However, he doesn’t know what he would say if Daryl asked to fuck him. He chooses not to dwell on it as Daryl sits up, reaching for a backpack and beginning to rifle through it.

Rick’s eyes fall on Daryl’s cock, and he realises he hasn’t touched it yet. So he reaches out and grasps it carefully, Daryl jumping in surprise before continuing his search. Daryl’s cock isn’t as large as Rick’s own, which wasn’t unexpected given Rick was more well-endowed than most, but it was still a decent length and thickness, however, unlike Rick’s own, it’s cut, and he’s fascinated with how easily he can move his hand up and down and run his thumb over the slick head. Daryl drops the bag, something held in his hand and collapses back against the bed roll, groaning loudly and arching into Rick’s touch. Rick figured that jerking off the older man wasn’t something he would be bad at; he touched himself regularly so he just transferred what he knew he liked.

“It’s more or less the same,” Daryl tells him, returning to their earlier exchange, eyes fluttering closed, “Gotta use your fingers first so it don’t hurt, ‘n plenty of slick.”

Rick takes the bottle that Daryl presses into his palm, looking down at the label and finding that it’s oil for Daryl’s bow, but would work as lube. Rick quickly takes off the cap and pours some onto his fingers. Rick shifts closer and pushes at Daryl’s thigh with his clean hand, and the man spreads his legs further. Rick licks his lips subconsciously when part of Daryl’s crack and his entrance is exposed, pink and dusted with hair slightly lighter than that around the man’s cock. He reaches down, and spreads lube over Daryl’s entrance, pouring on a little more before starting to push in.

“Fuck, one first asshole,” Daryl snarls, slapping Rick in the chest.

“Sorry,” Rick replies, silently cursing at himself and tucks back his middle finger and proceeds to gently press in his index. He wriggles it against the man’s walls, feeling the difference in texture than he’s used to, then begins moving his finger in and out. He gauges Daryl’s reaction and the man seems relaxed, one arm behind his head, the other laid against his stomach, above his twitching cock which is leaking a small pool of pre-come onto his stomach. After a few minutes, Rick pulls his finger out, pouring more oil and presses the second finger alongside the first.

Daryl makes no protest and sighs softly, eyes fluttering closed as he spreads his legs further, his foot nudging against Rick’s thigh. Over the next few minutes Rick slowly stretches Daryl open under his instruction, until he’s spread over three fingers and rocking back against them. Rick’s cock is straining against his stomach from watching; Daryl is flushed and moaning, a sheen of sweat covering his skin and both of his hands are tangled in the blanket of his bed roll, squeezing the fabric tightly.

“Come on,” Daryl finally tells him, and Rick doesn’t hesitate in pulling his fingers from the man’s body. He reaches for the oil again, pours into the palm of his hand and rubs it up and down his cock until it’s slick. He doesn’t have a condom on, but in that moment, he doesn’t care, and Daryl doesn’t seem to either. He bends down over Daryl, propping himself up on an elbow above him, looking down to align his head with the other man’s hole before kissing him as he presses inside.

Daryl licks into his mouth, holding him tightly around the back by one arm, and the hand over the other resting on the back of Rick’s neck. His head breaches his hole and he easily slips a few inches inside, stopping for a moment to focus on kissing Daryl. For a man as stoic and reserved as he was in normal situations, the hunter sure was different during sex, and was insistent on Rick kissing him as often as possible. Rick didn’t mind, he liked kissing him.

After allowing the older man a few moments to stretch, Daryl thrusts down against him and Rick gets the message, sliding in all the way. He groans loudly, mouth slipping from Daryl’s and they pant, breathing in each other’s air. It feels different, but heavenly, and he breathes deeply as he resists the urge to fuck into the man.

Daryl’s hand rubs up and down his back a few times before threading into Rick’s hair, and he tugs the man’s head down, turning his mouth to Rick’s ear. He gasps when Daryl sucks on his earlobe before whispering, “Fuck me, baby.”

Rick groans and pulls out until just an inch is left inside the man’s tight heat, and then thrusts back in. Daryl moans in his ear and his hands fall to Rick’s hips, holding tightly and pulling Rick closer to him. Rick lays down over him, their chests pressed together, faces inches apart and continues thrusting, feeling Daryl loosen around him slightly as he adjusts to his length as much as possible. Daryl’s hand in his hair seemed to be a constant, and the occasional tug against his scalp was welcomed.

Rick aims his next thrust well as Daryl cries out, his back arching off the bed, pressing his weeping cock to Rick’s stomach. Rick thrusts in again, harder, and Daryl swears, his cry turning into a quiet desperate whine as Rick continues the onslaught against what he assumes, by Daryl’s reaction, is the man’s prostate. The hand not in Rick’s hair scrambled for a few moments before finding purchase on Rick’s ass, squeezing harshly, fingernails stabbing into the tender skin.

“Right fucking there,” the hunter tells him, “Harder.”

Rick follows instructions, fucking into him until his arms begin to ache from bearing almost the entirety of his weight. He shifts upwards, slipping out of Daryl’s hole, ignoring the swears in protest the other man makes. He sits back on his heels and grabs Daryl by the hips, pulling his thighs up over his own until the man’s ass sits just beneath his crotch. He holds Daryl with one hand and uses his the other to push back inside, groaning as the tight heat envelopes him again, Daryl doing the same at being filled.

He quickly starts thrusting again and sweat starts to dribble down his temple. It takes him a moment to get his rhythm back, but once he does Daryl seems pleased beneath him; mouth open and spilling moans and groans, hands tangled in the sheets because he can’t reach Rick anymore. His cock is angry and red against his stomach, desperate for attention as it leaks against his stomach. Rick can feel the pleasure building inside him, the tingling in his spine and he knows he’s close. Thankfully, Daryl seems to be too as he finally reaches for his cock, wrapping his large hand around it and jerking it in time with Rick’s thrusts.

Barely a minute later, Daryl groans deep and low in his throat as his back arches off the bed, and Rick watches captivated as come spurts from his cock and over his stomach and up his chest, thick and white. Rick fucks into him hard and fast, sitting on the edge of his own orgasm and desperate to reach it. It doesn’t take long, and he stills for a moment before collapsing forward and moaning loudly as he crashes over the edge into what has to be the most intense orgasm of his life. As he comes down, he attempts a few lazy thrusts to draw out the last of his pleasure before he pulls out carefully, and then flops down on the bed beside Daryl.

The bedroll isn’t big enough for the both of them, and Rick is laid half on the floor of the tent. Daryl gives him no invitation to cuddle up beside him, and Rick doesn’t ask. They lay in silence, panting to catch their breaths, sweat and come drying on their skin.

“You tell anyone ‘bout this, that I let you do that,” Daryl says after a few minutes, voice hoarse and barely louder than the cicadas in the fields around them, “I’ll break your jaw.”

Rick shifts to look at the hunter, “That you let me? You’re the one who suggested we come to the tent,” he reminds him, slightly surprised at Daryl’s sudden aggressiveness when just minutes ago he’d been kissing him and calling him baby as he asked him to fuck him.

“Never said I wasn’t,” Daryl drawled, reaching into a pocket on the side of the tent and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, “Difference between doin’ it and people knowin’ you are.”

Rick watches as he lights the cigarette and takes a deep drag of it, “’Spose,” he says, turning away and looking above him, watching a moth fly around the lantern hanging from the roof. The scent of smoke fills Rick’s nose.

“Unless you want your wife and son to see you leavin’ here in the mornin’, you better leave.”

Rick looks over at him again, watching as he blows smoke from his mouth in rings. Rick knows he’s right, so he doesn’t know why he feels hurt at being kicked out of bed.

“Just let me get my breath back, Dixon,” he replies, and Daryl grunts, continuing to smoke his cigarette.

Rick keeps to his word and stays laying down only a few minutes longer, until his breathing is back to normal, and once it is, he stands on still slightly weak legs and begins rifling through the mess of clothes on the floor of the tent to find his own. He finds his boxers and jeans first and pulls them up his legs. His shirt he shrugs on next, turning to face Daryl as he does up the buttons. The older man looks at him from where he lays relaxed on the bedroll, cigarette between his fingers and his soft cock resting against his thigh. Rick looks him up and down, licking over his bottom lip as he does, and he wonders how he’d never realised how attractive the hunter was before tonight. How he is now, post-sex and smoking, he looks like something Rick would have secretly jerked off to.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says once his boots are on, turning and unzipping the tent.

“See you tomorrow,” Daryl repeats and with that, Rick exits and re-zips the tent, looking at Daryl’s illuminated shadow inside for a moment before turning and heading back to the main camp.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya, welcome to chapter 2
> 
> *some dialogue from this chapter is taken from the show.

In the following two days, Rick could barely stand to be around Lori or Daryl. Whenever near either of them, he was filled with an aching guilt in his chest. He’d had sex with another man, while his pregnant wife and son slept two hundred yards away.

The anger he felt toward Lori he didn’t disappear though. He’d offered her an opportunity to come clean because while it was clear to almost everyone that she’d had an affair with Shane while the dead had been walking, the affair had started long before that. A year before the turn he’d found them in bed together when he’d returned home from work after the sweet secretary at the station had told him to clock off early because of his pounding headache. For Carl, Rick had stayed. Lori had promised that should would end it, and she would never touch another man again, and Shane had done just about everything to regain Rick’s trust. But, Rick knew; he knew that they’d continued the affair in that year, and it was the morning he was shot that he’d finally told Lori he wanted a divorce.

When they were reunited, the emotions and joy of realising each other was alive had made things okay for a little while, enough for them to sleep together twice, to pretend that Lori wasn’t always fucking Shane, that she didn’t know who’s baby she was carrying, but as they weeks went on, they continued to drift apart and weren’t together properly. Rick knew that he didn’t love Lori anymore. He hadn’t in a long time, but he loved their son more than life itself, and for the longest time, he’d thought staying was the right thing to do. But now, in a world as broken and complicated as this one was, he didn’t know how he could fit pretending to love his wife into it.

His choice to sleep with Daryl hadn’t been a smart one. While it would drive more complications into an already difficult relationship between him and the hunter, it had also become something else that he needed to hide from the rest of the group. Shane was as homophobic as they came and would be revolted to know his best friend liked guys, would probably spit some bullshit that Rick would have perved on him in the communal shows back at the station; which wasn’t the case, Rick had always thought Shane was an ugly son of a bitch. Lori, while she didn’t like it, she’d never shown disdain toward gay people outright, but he knew that would change if she discovered her husband had slept with another man, especially Daryl. As for Carl, Rick honestly didn’t know if the boy had much interaction with same-sex couples, had probably seen a few on TV but nothing more. They hadn’t gotten around to having the _talk_ with him yet either, so there’d be a lot he wouldn’t understand, but he knew enough to know what cheating was.

Daryl’s confidence during their sexual encounter had been surprising because he never would have picked the older man as gay, but he supposed that was due to his own toxic ideas of what a gay man looked like. After all, Rick couldn’t lie and say he’d only saw Daryl as a warm hole to put his dick and forget about the day he’d had; he’d been well aware that it was a man beneath him, and he had liked it. He’d liked kissing Daryl and feeling the scratch of his facial hair against his skin, the hardness of his body in comparison to soft curves, the deep raspiness of his moans, the feel of his cock in his hand.

Fucking Daryl, and having what was probably the best sex of his life, had stirred up the same feelings within Rick that he’d had as a nineteen-year-old; fresh out of high school and using the fake ID Shane had gotten for them to sneak into gay bars when he couldn’t resist the curiosity anymore. He’d follow guys into parking lots or take them back to his own car where there’d be ten minutes of rushed kissing before Rick would chicken out and whatever guy he’d found would leave disappointed, and Rick would try to pretend that he wasn’t hard. But after sixteen years of mostly medicore sex, and in its most recent years, an unhappy marriage, Rick had cracked and given in to his desires and slept with Daryl only a week after finding out Lori was having another baby. In the two nights since he’d been with Daryl, Rick had felt temptations like he never had before; he craved the hunter, and it had taken all of his willpower not to walk over to Daryl’s camp when the others had gone to sleep.

Then, they had gotten into the mess in town at the bar, found Randall, and everything had become more complicated. The night that Rick had been set to execute the young boy, afterward had been the night he’d almost given in again, after his son had found them and told him to ‘do it’, wanting to watch the execution, he’d looked at Daryl before leaving the barn, and the man had nodded his head toward his camp in a silent invitation, Rick nodded back and left with Carl. He’d had every intention of going after dealing with Carl, and then they heard the screams.

The following morning after Dale’s death, Rick stood in front of the group beside the freshly dug grave and spoke, “We’re not broken. We’re going to prove him wrong. From now on we’re going to do it his way. That is how we honour Dale,” he told them, haunted by the old man’s last words that exposed the group for how it truly was; broken.

Dale’s death, his loud screams and bullet used on him had caused more walkers to flock to the farm. They’d seen ten in the morning alone and began undertaking more precautions to secure the farm and protect their land. Rick had firmly told Carl he was no longer allowed to wander around on his own, though it had only been two hours and he’d already slipped from Lori and Carol’s watch twice. Hershel had extended the invitation to move everybody into the farmhouse, stating that it was no longer safe for them to be outside at night and he should have done it long ago. It seemed that Dale’s death was a kick in the ass for a lot of them.

As the group packs up the camp and starts to move into the house, Rick realises that he hadn’t seen Daryl since the funeral, and after asking Carol, is told that the man had disappeared back to his camp over an hour ago.

Sure enough, Rick finds the hunter there, sat on a log by his dead fire and making what appears to be arrows for his bow.

“Come on,” Rick says, stopping in front of him and folding his arms over his chest. He can see Dale’s blood still on the older man’s shirt.

“Thought we weren’t going for a little while,” Daryl grunts, not looking up at him.

“We’re not. Hershel’s moved us all into the house. Need to pack up your stuff and get you situated.”

“Just fine where I am. Don’t need to be near you people.”

Rick scoffs at the man’s insult, “I wasn’t making a suggestion, Daryl.”

Daryl finally looks up at him, gaze squinted and angry, “Who the fuck are you to tell me where I sleep?” he snarls, tossing the beginnings of an arrow to the dirt and getting to his feet.

Rick stands his ground, “The leader of this group. It will be safer for all of us if we’re in the one place, where we can protect each other. I need you there, to protect everyone. You can’t do that from all the way out here.”

Daryl stares at him, still not saying anything, so Rick huffs and steps around the fire to the man’s tent, undoing the tie around the tree, “Don’t touch my shit man,” he growls and shoves Rick away.

“Don’t act like a child,” Rick snaps at him, the way Daryl’s looking at him angry and frightening. Rick wonders, if he were to grab the older man’s face and kiss him right there, what he would do. He chooses not to try it, especially considered there’s a possibility the others could see them from the house.

“I fuckin’ dare you to say that to me again.”

Rick sighs, rolling his eyes as he puts his hands on his hips and stares at the older man, “You are coming back to that house, Daryl. You can sacrifice your solace for the better of the group,” he tells him, stepping closer to him and getting in his space and lowering his voice, “Now, are you going to come or do I have to drag you over.”

Rick can feel the other man’s breath on his face, see the shine of sweat on his forehead, and Rick is filled with a want to tangle his fingers in his hair, kiss him and shove him up against the nearest tree. Instead, Daryl shoves against his chest, hard and calls him a ‘cunt’ under his breath, but does proceed to start taking down his tent, so Rick considers it a victory. It doesn’t take long to pack away the hunter’s camp, and Rick takes the weight of the man’s pack and tent bag as they begin the trudge across the field, Daryl pushing his motorcycle instead of riding it. The bike was too loud to ride safely across the farm, especially after how many walkers had appeared since last night.

The sun beats down on them as they walk, despite the approaching winter it would still be incredibly hot for the next month or so during the day, and the temperature would gradually begin to decrease of a night.

They walk in silence until they’re halfway across the field, apart from Daryl’s occasional grunt at having to pull the bike over uneven ground and through long grass. Rick finally sighs and looks over at the hunter, “That thing you did last night…”

Daryl meets his gaze, “Ain’t no reason you should be doin’ all the heavy lifting,” he says, squinting at the sun that shines into his eyes from behind Rick head.

Rick stares back at him, “Thank you. I was too weak to even shoot Randall, and he had tried to kill us. I could have never done that to Dale.”

“Don’t make you weak. Shane has wanted to kill Randall from the start, does that make him strong?”

“No. You’re right,” Rick says, sighing heavily.

“Letting Randall go may not be the right thing to do, but neither’s killing ‘im. We work with the options we got.”

Rick nods his agreement, “We’ve got to do what’s best for the group, what will keep them alive and all of us fighting.”

“It’s all we can do, man.”

They fall into silence for the rest of trek to the main area of the farm. T-Dog takes Daryl’s tent bag from Rick’s arms to put into storage with the others, and Daryl rolls his bike to where the other cars had been parked.

Rick climbs onto the balcony of the house, pulling out the map from his back pocket while he waits for Daryl to finish up with his bike and for Carol to give him the provisions she was putting together for Randall.

“Hey, man, you seen Carl lately?”

Rick looks up to see that Shane has appeared in front of him, “He’s inside with his mother.”

Shane nodded, “Look, he came to me. Okay, I wasn’t supposed to say anything…” he says, and Rick squints at him, “But, he was out in the swamps yesterday and he came across a walker stuck in the mud. Got scared, ran off.”

It suddenly clicks for Rick why the boy had been acting so strangely since Dale’s death the previous night, “The same walker that killed Dale?” he asks even though he’s sure of the answer.

“That’s the one,” Shane nods.

“I’ll have Lori talk to him.”

Shane pauses, tilting his head as he looks at him, something in his eyes that Rick doesn’t like, “Look, I think he wants to talk to his father.”

“Well, I need this Randall thing done already,” he replies.

“Man, that needs to wait, okay?”

Rick feels anger simmer inside of him, and he chews at the inside of his cheek, “It’s my call,” he tells the man that feels a lot more like a former friend than a current one. He knows that he should be the one to talk to Carl, that the boy needs his father, but the sooner he deals with Randall, the sooner he can give Carl his undivided attention and help the boy with what he was going through.

Shane licks his lower lip, then looks over to where Daryl was rifling through the bag on his bike, “How about I ride out with Daryl? Be good for us to spend a little time together,” Shane offers. It was no secret that Shane and Daryl didn’t get along in the slightest, and Rick knew if he were to head out with the hunter, he would spend the whole time antagonising him in the hopes of getting a reaction out of him so he’d have an excuse to throw a through punches.

“Nah, I need you here,” Rick replies, folding the map and slipping it into his back pocket.

“Don’t think I’ll handle it right, huh?” Shane asks, raising an eyebrow at him challengingly.

“Didn’t say that.”

“What did you say?” Shane asks, and then pulls a gun out of his back pocket, sitting it on the railing in front of Rick, “You know your son, he gave me this. You should get that back to Daryl, huh?” he says, and then with a sneer, says, “Freeing that prisoner is more important to you than Carl.”

Rick clenches his hands into fists as he resists the urge to punch the man in front of him. Shane, rightfully so, chooses then that it’s a good time to leave and turns on his heels and leaves. Rick tries to stomp down the rising anger he feels within inside himself, reaching forward and gripping the railing of the porch beneath his calloused hands.

After a few moments, Rick hears someone step up behind him and he hopes it isn’t Lori.

“Hey,” Daryl says quietly, and Rick sighs softly in relief, “Is that my gun?”

Rick suddenly remembers the gun Shane had sat on the railing and picks it up, turning around and holding it out to the hunter, “I’m sorry, Carl had it. He must have snatched it from your bike,” he tells him, and Daryl takes the gun, turning it over in his hands.

Daryl hands it back after a few seconds, “He can keep it. Kid’s a good shot, he just wants to protect you and his momma.”

“What about you?” Rick asks, taking the gun from the older man’s hand, and watching as Daryl tilts his hips to show Rick the gun in the holster at his side.

“T-Dog just gave me Dale’s. It’s not like that gun was ever mine anyway. Pulled it off a walker at the start,” he replies.

Rick nods and tucks the gun into his belt, “Thank you,” he says, and as much as he hates to admit it, Shane had gotten under his skin and he knows he needs to go and talk to Carl before they take Randall.

Daryl seems to understand without Rick saying anything, the older man probably having overheard their argument, “Find me when we’re leavin’,” he says and then proceeds to enter the house.

Lori steps out only moments later, the expression on her face clear that she wants to talk, so Rick shakes his head, asks where Carl is and leaves once he has his answer.

He finds Carl a few minutes later in the lay loft of the barn, sitting in front of the large window, legs dangling off it as he stared out at the fields. The boy looks incredibly troubled, and Rick curses at himself for not realising sooner. He feels even angrier at Shane.

“Mom said you’d be here,” Rick greets his son, and sits down beside him.

“Told her I would stand lookout. Got tired of helping around the house,” Carl replies, looking over at him briefly.

Rick pulls Daryl’s gun from his belt and holds it out to Carl, “Take it. Daryl knows. He wants you to have it,” Carl stares at the gun, and then back up at Rick, looking incredibly unsure of himself, “What happened to Dale had nothing to do with you,” he then says firmly.

“He died, dad,” Carl said quietly, his eyes turning glossy.

Rick sighs, “Yeah. Yeah, it feels like there’s a lot of that going around,” he says, reaching out and putting a hand on Carl’s shoulder. It was true, since arriving at the farm almost three weeks ago; they’d lost Otis, Sophia and now Dale, “That’s why I need you. No more kid stuff. I wish you could have had the childhood I had but that’s not gonna happen,” It upsets Rick to no end that the words are true, that Carl will never know what it’s like to be a real kid, “People are gonna die. I’m gonna die. Mom. There’s no way you can ever be ready for it. I try to be, but I can’t. The best we can do now is avoid it as long as we can, keep one step ahead,” Rick sighs loudly, “I wish I had something better to say, something more profound. My father was good like that. But, I’m tired son, please take it,” he repeats, holding the gun out again and after a moment of hesitation, Carl takes it.

Carl doesn’t say anything as he grips the gun, but after a few moments, leans into Rick’s side. Rick wraps his arms around his boy and pulls him to him, pulling off his hat so he can bury his nose in the boy’s hair and inhale his scent. He doesn’t smell as clean as he once did, before the turn, but it doesn’t bother him, because the scent of him means he’s alive, and he’s here. And Rick will never let him go.

* * *

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

It didn’t add up, that Randall had escaped and attacked Shane, the older man charging after him into the woods without the rest of them noticing. And now, the four of them, Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Shane had split up in the woods in the dark, undoubtedly not the smartest decision, especially since Shane had slowly been leading him further and further out, away from the farm, and from the others.

Rick held his gun tightly in his hand, and not because he was afraid of Randall or walkers coming at him from the woods. He had a feeling that Randall was already dead. Shane’s plan, what he had truly done, and now intended to do, was starting to piece itself together in Rick’s head. The man wasn’t the same as he was before the outbreak, hell none of them were, but Shane, he’d snapped, and Rick knew he was going to be on the receiving end of it.

Finally, Rick and Shane step out of the tree line and into the first field before the barn. Shane, as he had been the whole night, was several paces behind him, and it had him on edge, unsettled, knowing a bullet could be put through the back of his head at any moment. He begins to query Shane about the events that had let to Randall’s escape, to see if his suspicions really were true.

For every question, Shane had a reasonable answer. If Rick wasn’t a cop and couldn’t read his behaviour, if Shane wasn’t in love with his wife and harbouring hatred for Rick, he may have believed the excuses he gave.

Rick stops walking when he realises Shane has, halfway up the hill, and puts his gun back in his holster, “So this is where you plan to do it?”

“It’s a good place as any,” Shane replies, and Rick’s lips twitch.

“At least have the balls to call this what it is…” he says, a slight tremble in his voice and he hears Shane take the safety off his gun, “Murder.”

* * *

It was just after sunrise where they reached the highway, the spot where they’d left supplies for Sophia before they’d known she was dead. The drive had been silent, Carl quietly sobbing in fear and grief at losing Shane before he’d calmed down and simply stared out the window. Hershel hadn’t said a word, undoubtedly devastated at watching the fall of his farm, the one that had been in his family for generations.

The scent of smoke from the barn fire and the decomposition of the walkers filled the car. The scent stuck on their clothes, in their hair, blood painted on their skin. The sight of red spray on Carl’s pale skin was enough to feel sick and once out of the car, and after calming the boy down after Rick had explained that they couldn’t go back to the farm to look for the others, he’d used a clean shirt he found in the back of one of the abandoned cars to wipe as much blood of his skin as he could.

Carl had wandered off then to the patch of grass between the opposite sides of the highway, sitting down and picking at the grass. While Rick couldn’t deny that Hershel had a point in that he should get Carl to safety, away from the highway, he couldn’t just leave the old man behind to fend for himself, and he certainly couldn’t leave without knowing who had escaped the farm. He knew Jimmy and Shane were dead, but other than that, Hershel had been the only other person he’d seen.

Hours passed with no sign of the others and more walkers began to appear in among the mass of cars. They snuck around and tried to remain undetected but there’d been a few that they hadn’t been able to evade and had to put down, which luckily Rick had been able to do silently with his knife. It would be suicide if he set off a gun here.

It was getting harder to justify staying on the highway. Sooner or later the fire at the farm would burn out and the walkers would be drawn somewhere else, possibly back to the highway where they’d came from.

Just as Rick got down on a knee in front of his son, tears welling up in his eyes as he told him that it wasn’t safe, he heard the soft rumble of a motorcycle, quickly getting louder and louder until it appeared over the crest, Daryl and Carol atop it. Seconds later, Maggie’s car and the old blue truck followed. He and Hershel shared a smile before they took off down the highway to reach the others.

He reaches Daryl first accepts the hand the man holds out to him, slapping it in greeting and squeezing before turning to the others, watching as Glenn, Maggie, T-Dog, Beth and Lori appeared from the cars. There was cries as everyone embraced, and as Carl ran to his mother, Rick followed, dropping to the ground beside them and wrapping an arm around Lori’s back, kissing the side of her head because despite everything, it was relieving to see she was alive, that their baby was safe.

“Where’s the rest of us?” Daryl asks after a few minutes, after explaining that he’d been the one to round up Glenn and Maggie and had the same idea as Rick and headed back to the highway, and Lori and T-Dog had found them on the way.

“We’re the only ones who made it so far,” Rick replies meeting the man’s gaze, squinting at the sunlight that attacks his eyes.

Lori gets to her feet, “Shane?” she asks, voice hopeful, and Rick shakes his head. He watches as Lori’s face goes blank before her eyes reddened and well up with tears, she gasps and her gaze drops to the ground. Her fingers tighten into Carl’s shirt, but still, Rick doesn’t feel guilty for killing Shane.

“Andrea?” Glenn pipes up.

“She saved me, then I lost her,” Carol replied.

“We saw her go down,” T-Dog told them, hanging over an opened car door and staring blankly into the distance.

Hershel was next, “Patricia?”

Beth started to cry then, curling into her father’s shoulder and clutching Maggie’s hand, “They got her too. Took her right from me. I was holdin’ onto her, daddy. She just… what about Jimmy? Did you see Jimmy?”

Rick swallowed down the rising lump in his throat, wiping sweat off his forehead, “He was in the RV. It got overrun,” he told her, and she started to cry louder.

The group falls into discussion about Andrea and Rick grips Daryl’s shoulder when the man goes to climb on his bike to go back for her.

“We can’t just leave her,” Daryl argues weakly, looking at Rick almost pleadingly. He wants to go, but he won’t unless Rick tells him he can. Since arriving at the farm, it had been Daryl who had showed him the most loyalty.

“She isn’t there. She isn’t. She’s somewhere else or she’s dead. There’s no way to find her,” he says to the group, and Daryl straightens the bike again.

“So we’re not even going to look for her?” Glenn asks.

“We’ve got to keep moving. There have been walkers all over here,” Rick replies, shaking his head.

It feels wrong to leave without her, not having a clear answer whether or not she was dead, but they had waited at the highway for hours. Anyone who went back to the farm wouldn’t survive long enough to be able to leave again. Most of the group was back together again, the people Rick cared about the most were back with him. He had to take a win when it was presented to him.

Only minutes later, they’d climbed back into their cars and were heading down the highway, to try and find somewhere safe for the night.

* * *

“We’re all infected.”

“What?” Daryl’s the first one to speak, stepping closer, the slightest hint of betrayal in his voice at the revelation of Rick’s secret, was nothing compared to how the rest of the group was looking at him. He had blood stains on his cheek and neck, and Rick wondered if it was his own.

“At the CDC. Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it,” he tells them, and he watches as Daryl turns his back to him.

“And you never said anything?” Carol snaps, her gentle housewife appearance disappearing more and more as the days went on, as she was faced with more trauma.

“Would it have made a difference?”

“You’ve known this whole time?” Glenn sounds more bewildered than betrayed.

Daryl turns to face him again, and Rick meets his eyes, “How could I have known for sure? You saw how crazy that mother-“ he’s cut off by Glenn again and the group begins to spiral into argument before Rick turns and simply walks away from them, toward where a concrete bridge sits further up the road.

Lori follows him and when she touches him, hugs him from behind, he stiffens and doesn’t return the affection, instead choosing that moment to explain to her what had happened between him and Shane, that he had had no choice but to kill him, and Lori recoils away from him. He finds that more comforting than her arms around him. He knows that she still loves him, but there wasn’t any denying that she loved Shane. He didn’t love her as a husband should, he loved her as the mother of his child, as the woman he’d spent nearly two decades with, but he wasn’t _in love_ with her anymore.

* * *

After Rick had told the truth about the virus, tensions ran high within the group, and he faced constant questioning of his leadership and character by the group. Rick finally snapped once the sun had gone down and they were camped in the ruins of an old building; he’d essentially had a breakdown, shouting at the lot of them that all he’d ever done was keep the group safe, and that he would keep them together no matter what, and finally he spilled that he’d killed Shane for them. However, when he told them all that were free to leave to try and make it on their own, not one person moved.

Before he’d entered the camp, he’d overheard them talking amongst themselves. He could hear Carol trying to convince Daryl to take over as leader, that he didn’t need him, that he was Rick’s henchman and he would pull him down. He’d paused, and when Daryl replied that Rick had done alright by him, that he had honour, Rick had bowed his head in silent relief. And after his fit, when Rick had stormed away from the camp, it didn’t take Daryl long to catch up to him.

“Leave me be,” Rick snarled, footsteps heavy on the uneven ground and stumbling as he could barely see through the dark.

“Naw, man. You’ll get yourself killed if you’re out here like this.” 

“I can handle myself,” Rick replies, struggling to contain the fury raging inside of him.

“Normally, yeah,” Daryl replies, and Rick growls, turning around and grabbing Daryl by the shoulders. He pushes the man up against the closest tree. Daryl makes contact with a loud grunt and Rick presses his forearm against his throat, holding him there. Daryl doesn’t struggle, simply stares back at him, and Rick can barely make out his eyes in the pale light of a quarter-moon.

“I don’t need you watchin’ my back right now,” he hisses in the man’s face.  
  
“Oh, yeah?” Daryl challenges, “What about that walker that’s been following you on your left, you seen it yet?”

Rick falters, and tears his gaze away from Daryl, looking out into the darkness and after a moment, he hears it, the snarl of a walker and it doesn’t take him long to see it either; a middle aged man, fat and bloated like it had come out of water. He curses and releases the hunter, storming up to the walker and plunging his knife into its head. It collapses to the ground and Rick follows, continuing to assault the its rotten skull with his knife. When Daryl reaches down after a few moments and pulls him back to his feet, Rick doesn’t protest and allows Daryl to lead him over to a nearby fallen tree and sit him down.

Rick buries his face into his hands and shouts a curse into them.

Daryl sighs heavily as he sits down beside him, their shoulders knocking together. Rick realises the man has lit a cigarette when the strong smell of it reaches his nose. He’s always hated the scent of cigarettes.

“Rick,” Daryl finally says, quiet and gentle like he was talking to a spooked animal, “These people just lost their home, stability, safety. And it ain’t your fault, but right now they’re scared as shit and they just want someone to blame. Everyone just needs time, to come to terms with it, because it ain’t gonna be easy anymore.”

Rick listens, and regretfully, realises that the hunter is right, but that doesn’t mean that everyone turning on him so suddenly didn’t hurt, “I should’ve told you – about the infection.”

Daryl huffs and meets Rick’s eyes when he finally lifts his gaze, “Yeah, ya should’ve. But you didn’t and there ain’t no changing that now. Ain’t nothing we can do ‘bout it. Give it a week man, everyone will forget all ‘bout it because they’ll realise we got bigger issues.”

Rick nods, suddenly thankful that the hunter had followed him from the camp, “I hope you’re right.”

Daryl takes a deep drag of his cigarette, “Lori will forgive you for Shane.”

“I meant what I said. My hands are clean, I don’t feel guilty for killing him.”

“You shouldn’t,” Daryl agrees, “Guy was fucked, was by the time I arrived at the Quarry. Whoever y’all knew before the outbreak was long gone.”

Rick hums, and after a moment, says, “I know they were sleepin’ together,” he said, and Rick can’t read the way the hunter looks at him, “Everyone in the group tiptoes around it, but don’t worry I knew. I found ‘em a year before the outbreak, Lori promised she’d never do it again, but I know it never stopped. Shane didn’t like it when I was suddenly back and in his way.”

“’M sorry,” Daryl replies, and offers his half-smoked cigarette, taking it back when Rick shakes his head.

“Don’t be. Makes it easier to sleep with you,” Rick smirks, and Daryl snorts.

“Who said I’d let ya do that again?”

“You did, didn’t you? Would have too if Shane hadn’t taken off with Randall,” Rick answered and leaned a little closer, he can just see the darkening of Daryl’s cheeks.

Daryl eventually rolled his eyes and stood up from the lop, grabbing Rick by the arm and hauling him up to, “Another time. When we ain’t surrounded by a herd of walkers.”

Rick hums, “Fair deal,” he agrees, and they fall into step beside one another, walking back in the direction of camp.

The walkers leave them alone for the night, the woods stay eerily quiet, whatever animals and birds that usually lurked about had either been eaten or gone into hiding when the mass of walkers had passed through. There wasn’t much talk amongst the group for the rest of the night, and eventually everyone fell into a restless sleep, preparing for the day they had ahead of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Kudos & comments are appreciated & inspire me to write more. 
> 
> Tumblr @iiloulouii


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